


Lord of Light

by Deshima



Category: Norse Religion & Lore, Vikings (TV)
Genre: Athelstan has a god-sized issue, Athelstan is probably the worst monk in christian history, Gen, Probably not very good, most likely AU, written for kicks and fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-24 12:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1605587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deshima/pseuds/Deshima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The result of somewhat cracky prompt found on tumblr that inspired a slightly less cracky fic about how Athelstan is actually a Norse god disguised as a monk after he left Asgard in a huff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How Baldur left Asgard and ended in Lindisfarne

It will always amaze him how readily his family believed his death. Or rather the permanence of his death. He was the god of light. Light could be extinguished of course but all it ever took was a spark to bring it back again. And yet his family had forgotten it it seemed. When he woke up three weeks after being hit by that mistletoe arrow it was only to discover much to his horror that Hodr had been murdered in the name of justice, his wife had died of grief and Loki had been subjected to a punishment he would not have wished on his worst enemy. And all because no-one had even paused to think about the nature of his powers. (A dark niggling voice tells him it might have been deliberate. Hodr has always been seen as a burden and few people really like Loki). To say he is furious is an understatement.

He’d always felt a bit out of place with his family. He was supposed to represent light and purity among a people that didn’t care much about either and it had made him feel unneeded and unwanted at times. He’d always had a desire to leave but he’d always felt that he couldn’t. Poor blind Hodr needed him and Asgard was were Nanna and Forseti were. But now both Hodr and Nanna are dead and Forseti is by now old enough to take care of himself. After what they have done the decision to leave and let his family believe he is truly dead is not a hard one. He does visit Forseti. His son did lose his mother after all and it would be cruel to keep the truth from him. 

Forseti is a smart boy and knows how to look in the hearts of men. It is why he is a god of justice and his father’s heart is easier to read than most. After the initial hug and explanations it is whith a somewhat sad smiles that he asks: “You are leaving aren’t you?”  
For a moment he almost says no. But the understanding look in his son’s eyes make him nod instead.  
“Where?” Forseti asks.  
“Midgard,”he answers. “It looks interesting.”  
“ANd it will allow you to do something about Loki,”Forseti adds smiling approvingly.   
He freezes. He’d hoped to keep this from his son, but Forseti really is too smart for his own good.  
“You don’t mind?”He asks.  
Forseti shakes his head.  
“It hardly seems fair to punish him so when you are alive,”his son says. He smiles, Forseti is the god of justice but unlike Tyr’s justice it is the kind of justice that leaves both parties satisfied. Leaving Loki to suffer when his crime has been undone probably makes him twitch in the worst ways.

He leaves the next day,his son’s blessing warming his heart. He makes a quick secretive trip to his own hall to retrieve whatever his family didn’t throw on his funeral pyre and then with the hood of his cloak drawn deeply over his face Baldur leaves Asgard.

\---------------------------  
The first thing he does when he reaches Midgard is look for the cave where Loki is held. It is deep dark and dank and he wouldn’t want to spend even a day in it let alone eternity. Sigyn gasps in surprise when she sees him and nearly spills her bowl.  
“Careful,”he says steadying the heavy bowl. He can see her arms tremble and Loki has several half healed acid burns on his face already.  
Loki he also sees is not surprised by his presence unlike Sigyn.  
“Hello Loki,”he says neutrally. He may not agree with the punishment that Loki got but the man did try to kill him and it makes him wary at best.  
Loki grins his widest shit-eating grin.  
“Hello Baldur, “he answers. “Seems my theory was right, light can never be killed for good.”   
Baldur frowns.  
“You got me killed because you wanted to test a theory? “he asks incredulously.  
“Seemed like a good idea at the time and if I was right you would be perfectly fine,”Loki answers.  
“That idea,”he says frostily. “Still caused the death of your sons and my brother and wife.”

Loki’s face changes. Baldur has only ever seen the Jotunn with some sort of amused expression. But now Loki’s face twists into an expression of the deepest and most abject grief and guilt.  
“I’m sorry,”he chokes.”That was never my intention.”  
Baldur makes his decision.  
“I left Asgard,”he says. “ I have no intention of returning and midgard seems interesting. Want to come?”  
Loki stares at him first and then gives him a watery grin.  
“I would love to,”he says. “But there is the small matter of me being tied up.”  
The corner of Baldur’s mouth twitches upwards.  
“I am the god of light,”he answers. “ANd you know that they say that everything looks better in the light of day.”

He lights a small globe of light and now that the cave is illuminated properly it doesn’t take him long to find the knot that binds Loki. Swallowing down revulsion ( really what was father thinking when he tied Loki down with the guts of his own _son_ ) he undoes the knot and with that Loki is free.

\---------------------

Traveling with Loki and Sigyn is a lot of fun it turns out. Before the whole mistletoe debacle he didn’t know Loki very well. Loki mostly interacted with Odin who was his blood-brother and Thor while Baldur had been mostly busy with Nanna, Forseti and with taking care of Hodr. But now that they are traveling together it is hard to not get to know each other. Loki completely lives up to his reputation of trickster. He is irresponsible, mischievous, highly sarcastic, curious as a cat and to top it off highly intelligent. Unlike what one could believe at first though he is not actively malicious. He just likes to shake things up and doesn’t think things through. In the light of what just happened through that is changing.   
Sigyn is his complete foil in some aspects and his twin in others. She has a biting sense of humor( difficult not to with Loki as a husband) but she is also the voice of common sense in their relationship. She is not easily ruffled and utterly practical

It is she who suggests that he dyes his hair the first time they enter a town. Baldur’s hair is a bright shining white but it seems that among humans only the old have white hair and he draws a lot of attention. Attention is one thing he wants to avoid. Initially they try change the color with magic but Baldur tends to forget to hold the illusion when his minds is somewhere else so after some experimenting he discovers that dark walnut shells will dye his hair a ordinary brown without going through too much fuss. 

They travel the length and breath of the Europe, go south where the people get progressively more darker-skinned, then turn east were people first turn brown and then get slanted eyes and use a strange script that seems to exist of thousands of symbols. Baldur learns the language of Qin and how to swear in the many dialects spoken in Miklagard. They learn to appreciate the spices of the Indian Kingdoms, enjoy the hospitality of the Imazighen and taste lion for the first time in some lost savanna south of the great Desert.

Baldur enjoys this life but traveling even when you are an immortal god is wearying. Surprisingly though it is Loki and Sigyn why settle down first. In hindsight though it isn’t that surprising. Loki and Sigyn have lost their children but they still have each other and they have every intention to try for more. So one day when Baldur leaves the gers of some obscure Mongol tribe near Burkhan Khaldun he leaves without Loki and an already pregnant Sigyn. He suspects that their descendants will shake up the rest of the world sooner or later.

He travels alone for a while, revisits some favorite places. It is not the same though as traveling with Loki and Sigyn and he starts looking for a place to settle down himself. He has no intention to marry, Nanna was his one and only love but there plenty of orphans in the world and he does miss intelligent company. Before he does that though he embarks on one last great journey. He is walking on the docks of some obscure port in the kingdom of Munster when he hears about a monk Brendan who is about to embark on a great sea-journey to the west. Having spend a century or two in Loki’s company has made him as nearly as curious as the God of Trickery himself and on a whim he decides to join. He has never gone West before.

Turns out there is more the the West than only miles upon miles of open sea. There is another land there, huge, bountiful and nearly empty save for a people with the same eyes as Baldur saw in the East. He nearly stays when Brendan leaves again for Ireland but in the end he has seen enough of traveling for now. He wants to quiet down for a while. He figures he can always come back in a few centuries. So he goes back to Ireland and when Brendan who has become a friend by now asks him to stay he only hesitates a little before he says yes. The other monks do not like the idea of pagan spending time in their monastry however so he pretends to convert and dons a monks habit. Brendan who once caught him dying his hair black, renames him Peadar mac Finnbarr as a joke..

He feels a little guilty at first. The Christians strictly believe in one god and yet there he is a pagan god pretending to be one of them. But the guilt fades and despite some of their indiosyncracies he likes most of these Christians. They are a bit less warlike than his family’s people and tend to appreciate kindness a bit more. He makes himself at home. 

He forgets one thing though. Humans age, he doesn’t. He never stayed long in one place for people to notice before but when Brendan dies the other monks are quick to tell him he isn’t welcome anymore. SO he starts traveling again but he does it a bit different now. He stays a bit longer now, two or three years usually, not long enough for people to notice he doesn’t age but enough to get to know people and to learn what they have to teach. Because humans do have a lot to teach even to a god it turns out. Humans may be short lived but they burn all the brighter for it and on occasion their intellect will burn just as bright.   
He sits at Al-Kindi´s feet in Bagdad and debates with Al-Asma-i in Basra. He listens to Han- Yu’s poetry in Nanyang and discusses saint Augustine´s texts with Peter of Pisa at the court of king Karl (not yet nicknamed the Great then).

After his brief stint at the King Karl’s court though he again feels the need for some quiet. Which is how one gentle spring evening he knocks at the door of the monastry of Lindisfarne and presents himself as Brother Athelstan ( after Brendan’s joke he always uses names that refer to stones) a young missionary who now desires to learn the art of illumination.


	2. How Baldur left Lindisfarne, met his half-brother and ended in Kattegat

He almost stays too long at Lindisfarne. It has been five years since he knocked at the gate and some of the monks have started to throw him some odd looks. It isn’t quite obvious yet he isn’t aging but the more sharp-eyed have started to notice some oddities. But Baldur isn’t quite ready to leave yet. He likes it at Lindisfarne. He loves the quiet, loves to spend his days just painting. It gives him the occasion to recuperate a bit from his latest round of travels and gives him a chance to figure out here to go next. Maybe he’ll go West again. Explore the lands that he and Brendan visited. Or maybe he could go North. He has strictly avoided the lands of his family’s people ever since he left. But it has been centuries now, chances of recognition are not nearly as high and he discovers that he actually misses the fjords, the forests and the merry savages that the land produces. Or maybe he’ll go East. See what Loki and Sigyn have been up to in his absence and how badly their offspring have been terrorizing the Mongol Plains.In the end however fate makes the choice for him.

He should be blind ,deaf and stupid to not understand what the thunderstorm means. He has seen a lot of thunderstorms in his lifetime. Created a couple too with some help of Loki. He knows damn well that this one is not natural and Thor couldn’t have given a more obvious sign than the dragon head that rises from the thunderclouds. The rest of the monks of course don’t know what that storm exactly means but neither are they stupid. They all know something is going to happen very soon and they might not like it.

Baldur really wants to warn them. To tell them to go. They may be christians and probably would try to kill him if they ever knew who he really was but they have been kind to him these past five years and he is loathe to see them come to harm. Because that is sure to happen if they stay. He doubts his family’s people have changed much since he left and they have always been a bit too fond of slaughter. But he doesn’t know how to tell them what the storm exactly is without revealing himself. So he has to settle for using bible quotes. He may not be christian but he has spend enough time among them now he can recite the bible forward and backward and he will have to thank the scholar that insisted on including the Book of Revelation in the biblical canon. Revelations provides a set of wonderful turns of phrases to describe what they are seeing and he hopes he can scare the monks into leaving.

It doesn’t work out however. Most of the monks are scared out of their minds but the abbot is too level headed. Baldur gets send to his bed as if he is a snot-nosed brat again. He almost does, almost gives up and hopes for the best. But then he remembers that despite the tonsure and the clothes he is not really the young monk Athelstan who obeys his abbot blindly. He is Baldur, God and Lord of Light and if he wants to save people he is going to do it the fates be damned. So he pretends to go to bed but when the storm subsides and the monks are snoring again he sneaks out.

Few know except for the abbot and the monks responsible for the carpentry but there is a passage that leads from the chapel to the outsides of the wall. Baldur still as curious as ever discovered it within six months of his arrival at Lindisfarne. He now spends the rest of his night stealing supplies from the kitchen and leaving it in handy packs near the entrance of the passage. He may not be able to use his magic to save them all lest he draws the attention of his family, something he still wants to avoid like the plague. But he damn well can give as many as possible the chance to escape once the carnage begins.

The warning comes during the Terce, barely ahead of the boatful of vikings that just landed on the island. The reaction it causes is fairly similar to what happens when a fox is loosed in a chicken pen. Baldur tries to lead the frightened monks to the chapel and to the passage it hides. It shouldn’t be too difficult. He may prefer peace to war but no son of Odin went without some training in war and command. But he soon discovers that commanding a company of seasoned einherjar is one thing, herding a bunch of scared monks who have never seen bloodshed is another thing entirely. The abbot tries to help and his authorative presence does much to calm the other monks down. He then however proves how little he know of battle by giving some of the most impractical orders Baldur ever heard.  
“Go back inside,”the abbot says and the monks like a bunch of brainless sheep do so, spreading themselves all over the monastry’s buildings. Some follow Baldur to the chapel, some follow the abbot to the scriptorium, some go to the kitchen making the task of herding them to the secret passage infinitely more complicated. 

Baldur urges those monks who did follow him down the passage as soon as he hears the gate crash. He does not follow though. Most of the monks are in a hurry to leave but a few of the younger monks notice.  
“Brother Athelstan,” brother Deorwine asks, one foot already down the secret stairs. “Are you not coming?”  
Deorwine is the youngest, barely nineteen and only inducted two years ago. He and Baldur have become friends the last two years. Baldur would love to say yes, would love to say he’ll come but in some ways Deorwine’s youthfull face is already showing more signs of aging than Baldur’s ever would and Baldur knows that one way or another ‘Brother Athelstan” will have to die today. Maybe he’ll just disappear, maybe he’ll even die for real. It’s not as if death will stick anyway as Loki made abundantly clear a few centuries ago. And so he shakes his head.  
“Not yet,”he lies. “I’ll try to find some more of our brothers and lead them here.”  
“But that’s dangerous,”another monk exclaims. “Those savages will find you and kill you.”  
“No they won’t,”Baldur assures him. “You know I’m the best at sneaking, remember when we went out to look at the stars.  
They nod. They are supposed to be obedient and to sleep when the abbot orders them to. But Baldur has always loved to look at the stars and one night he’d bumped into Deorwine and Leofdaeg on one of his nightly expeditions when _they_ had been out to pilfer the kitchen. He’d promised not to tell and since then he’d regurlarly had some company and so far he managed to never get them caught.  
“I’ll be as silent as I was then,”Baldur tells them. Their faces lose some of their anxious looks though he can see that some, maybe emboldened by his seeming courage, are now thinking of staying to help him.  
Luckily for him and them, grumpy old Brother Osbert chooses that moment to poke his head back out of the stair-well to inform crankily whether they are coming or not.

The last of them hastily shooed off Baldur closes the trapdoor carefully, covers it back up with the rug and sneaks out of the chapel. Carefully avoiding being seen he first makes his way to the scriptorium. To his horror he discovers the viking have beaten him to it. He only finds corpses and oddly a Gospel of Saint John that hasn’t been hacked to pieces. On a whim he takes it. The cover might be ordinary leather unlike the gilded bible they recently finished for the Bishop of Eoferwic but the illuminations are some of the most beautiful. He painted a few of them and he is rather proud of it. He leaves the scriptorium without looking back trying to lock the horror away. He has more luck in the kitchen. The kitchen it self has been thoroughly looted. The leeks that were supposed to go in this evenings soup are thoroughly trampled, a loaf of Brother Wilmaer’s delicious bread lies half eaten on the kitchen table and the meat hooks are empty save for one forlorn chain of sausages. The vikings haven’t discovered the trap-door to the root-cellar though and there he discovers to his joy brother Cyneheard, the assitent-cook and brother Wilmaer himself. He coaxes them out of the cellar and guides them on the nerve-wracking journey back to the chapel. 

He has just finished covering the trap door again when he hears unknown voices approach the chapel. He is actually surprised it took them this long. The chapel is after all were most of the precious metals are stored. He would face them off if he had a weapon but he only has the gospel and the small knife every monk carries with him for small tasks. So instead he hides behind the altar. They are three, he hears and they walk with the stride of the confident and the cocky. Heavy, lazy steps as if they expect no trouble. As well they should, Baldur guesses, there are no warriors here. He can hear them talk, can hear them wonder at seeing all the gold openly displayed. 

He tries to stay quiet and he succeeds mostly he thinks but apparently one of them has better ears than he thought and he finds himself suddenly hauled up and thrown on the floor. He didn’t had any intention of begging for his life. Death is unpleasant but he stopped fearing it a long time ago. But when he looks up into the face of his would-be murderer he finds himself staring into the face of his father. Suddenly he feels like he is five again and a furious Odin just drug him from his hiding place after he’d committed some childish mischief. A furious Odin always looked like he was ready to kill and at the age five Baldur had believed his father actually would. Which was why he had taken to begging his father not to kill him whenever his father dragged him out for punishment. It is not a habit he entirely lost and almost against his will he blurts: “Please don’t kill me!”  
From the surprised expressions of the three men he actually said that in Norse. 

In that moment of surprise he gets a good look at them. The two at the back sport magnificent beards, are armed to the teeth and have the look of family. The one holding him…. Well he still thinks the man looks like his father. There are certainly differences. The man has two eyes for one and doesn’t look any older than thirty. But his eyes are the same kind of intense blue as Odin’s remaining one, the nose and the cheekbones are the same and the man’s stance is the same as the Allfather’s as well. Baldur quickly realizes that he just met one of his father’s more recent bastards. He never was so happy he took after Frigga because all hell would break lose if a monk from Northhumbria suddenly turned out to look like a viking raider. Speaking of his mother he wonders what she thought of this latest proof of her husband’s infidelity. He distractedly hopes she gave the Allfather hell.  
Meanwhile his half-brother quickly recovers from his surprise.  
“He speaks our langauge,”he says adressing his companions. Then he turns back to him and presses a knife under his chin.  
“How do you speak our language,’he demands. Baldur doesn’t answer immediately. The knife digs and he feels a trickle of blood run down to his collar. That wouldn’t have happened before he left Asgard but somehow his mother’s protection doesn’t work anymore. Whether it is because he died or because he left his mother’s sphere of influence or something else he doesn’t know. But whatever the reason he can be hurt again as the blood now trickling down proves. The pressures put on the knife increases as his half-brother starts to lose his patience.  
“Well?”he insists.  
Baldur could never lie convincingly much to Loki’s hilarity. But one could not travel with that same god of trickery without learning at least some way to subvert the truth. So he tells a truth. Just not the truth.  
“I’ve travelled,”he finally says,letting his interlocutors assume that’s how he learned, never mind that norse is just as much his mother tongue as it is theirs.  
His half-brother smiles then looks down at the gospel Baldur is still hanging onto.  
“What is it that you have in your hand?”he asks, sounding genuinely curious.  
Baldur frowns at first. Don’t the northmen know of books by now? But then he remembers that while they may value cunning and intelligence they don’t particularly extend that regard to learning for the sake of it.  
“A book, I wanted to save it.”he answers and before he can elaborate the gospel is impatiently taken from his hands. His half-brother examines the book from all sides then flips it open. Baldur winces at the creak the poor abused spine makes but his half-brother only seems dissapointed when no gold or other treasures drop from the pages.  
He turns to Baldur again.  
“Of all the treasures I see in this place,”he says. “You chose to save this?”  
\- Yes  
-Why?  
Baldur doesn’t answer immediately, trying to find words to explain the priceless value of knowledge, and finds himself impatiently hauled against the wall. What is it with Northmen and manhandling he has to wonder.  
"Why," his half-brother asks again, sounding for all purposes like a cranky bear by now. Baldur realizes that he is trying to intimidate him. He wonders at first why but then he realizes that he hasn't exactly been acting like a peaceful monk confronted to violence for the first time.  
"Because a book contains knowledge,"he finally answers. "And knowledge is like light, without it there is only darkness."  
His half-brother surprises him then by smiling, making Baldur suspect that there might be more about him than just another raider.

Their converstation, if it can be called a conversation is interrupted, by the entrance of a few other raiders. The bible gets shoved into his hands again and Baldur discreetly checks whether the rough handling has injured the book's spine or not. He misses the beginning of the converation but he does not miss the mention of slavery. His blood freezes. He has seen slavery in all kinds of shapes throughout his travels and the only thing he has learned from it is that it is an indignity he does not wish on anyone least of all himself. Better to die even if it wasn’t temporary in his opninion. As the conversation between his half-brother and the newcomer progresses he starts looking around for a way to escape, or if it doesn’t work , to provoke the vikings into killing him. 

His half-brother has his back to him and his hand is not on his axe. He rises as quietly as possible. His half-brother notices something but by then its too late. Baldur quickly rams his shoulder in his half-brother’s back and makes a grab for the axe at the same time. His sudden action surprises everyone and in the confusion he manages to clock one of the long-bearded raiders. After that his luck runs out though. These man are seasoned raiders and though taken by surprise they recover quickly. Meanwhile Baldur hasn’t held a weapon in five years and he soon finds himself struggling against three attackers with a potential fourth groaning but already clambering on his feet. He distractedly thinks he should have gone for the kill but what little ruthless battle-streak he had has been eroded by five years of peace. He holds out for a few minutes but he inevitably makes a mistake. SOmeone ( he suspects his half-brother) strikes him on the back of his head and his last thought is to wonder where he will come back to life again.

WHen he wakes up with a splitting headache on the drakkar he has to conclude he wasn’t killed. He wonders why. His half-brother is looking at him and when they make eye-contact he grins and makes his way to him.

 

-They tell me your name’s Athelstan.  
Baldur only groans and tries to rub his aching head. WHich is when he discovers that his hands have been bound behind his back , his feet have been tied as well and there is a rope running from his neck to the mast.The raiders are taking no chances it seems. Which makes any attempt to go over the side impossible. Not that he was looking forward to drowning but he still preferred it to slavery. Meanwhile Baldur’s lack of response didn’t seem to faze his half-brother.  
-I’m Ragnar.  
When Baldur still doesn’t react he continues.  
-Tell me where did a monk learn to fight?  
“Why am I still alive?”Baldur counters.  
Ragnar cocks his head before deciding to reply.  
-You’re interesting, now answer my question.  
“I was not always a monk,’Baldur finally says and has to keep himself from snorting at the understatement. The answer seems to satisfy Ragnar for now however and he wanders away.

During the rest of the voyage Ragnar and the other raiders ignore him for which Baldur is grateful. It gives him the opportunity to observe his captors. The two long-bearded men are indeed kin and are called Leif and Erik. The raider that interrupted them in the chapel is called Rollo and Ragnar calls him brother. Rollo does not carry Odin’s look however. There is rivalry between Rollo and Ragnar mostly coming from Rollo but it is not the rivalry between a man and a bastard half-brother. Baldur suspect Rollo doesn’t know which doesn’t surprise him. Odin is a master of disguise. Ragnar it seems suspects at least something though if Baldur interprets the looks Ragnar is giving the ravens that follow the ship right. The most interesting man after Ragnar is the man they call Floki.The first time Baldur saw Floki he did almost as much of a double take as when he saw Ragnar. The resemblance between Floki and his almost namesake is not as strong as that between Ragnar and Odin. There are a couple of generation between the shipbuilder and the Trickster but Baldur has to wonder how far away it truly is. Loki almost completely stopped his womanizing ways once he married Sigyn and he is fiercely devoted to her. But Sigyn also is a cheerful enabler and allows her husband a few dalliances as long as she is included as wel. So Baldur has to wonder. Did Loki and Sigyn go back to the North somewhere this century? He hasn’t seen them since he left them on the Mongolian Plains.

The rest of the voyage blurs into one miserable stretch of cold, hunger and the impression that he will never get the taste of seawater from leaving his mouth. WHile unpleasant he can bear the discomfort easily enough but the other captured monks are not so lucky. One by one he sees the older ones get tumbled over the side as they die of exposure. The younger monks bear it better but they too look wan and miserable by the time they reach the shore. Baldur is by far he healthiest looking of the bunch. The raiders are intercepted as soon as they dock and led to the central hall of the town. The townspeople cheer as the procession pass but they do so in a subdued manner and it does not take a genius to see that there is something fishy going on. It becomes clearer when they reach the hall. 

The Earl quickly confiscates the loot except for one item per raider. Ragnar claims Baldur as if he is a piece of cattle but he swallows the humiliation and observes. Earl Haraldson is a powerful man and he might even once have been a good leader. The townspeople while indignant do not look openly rebellious and the loyalty of Haraldson’s housekarls is not only bought by gold. But for some reason he has grown paranoid over time and he fears the power that Ragnar could amass as a succesful raider. He is not entirely wrong if Baldur judges the glint in Ragnar’s eyes right. Ragnar like all Odinsons is a proud man and he does not like being humiliated. He has however also inherited some of Odin’s cleverness unlike some ( Thor, the Norns save Baldur from Thor) and he know that now is not the time to challenge the earl. Instead he stands down to the bewilderment of his fellow raiders and goes home tugging Baldur along like a recalcitrant goat.

The trip to Ragnar’s small hamlet would have been the prime moment to escape but Ragnar caught his look to the mountains and keeps a sharper eye on him after that.  
“Why are you so insistent on escaping,”Ragnar asks him later. “The mountains are harsh, you wouldn’t survive them.’  
“In my eyes death would be a better fate than slavery,”he answers. “And what makes you say I don’t know how to handle those mountains?’ He adds with a smirk he might have borrowed from Loki.  
Ragnar gives him an almost startled look before cocking his head in thought. Then he grins.  
“You are going to keep escaping are you,”He finally says.  
Baldur sees no reason to lie. Ragnar is smart and wouldn’t believe him if he says no. He nods.  
“But do you know where you would go?”Ragnar asks. Baldur has to stop and think about that. At the monastry he’d given the subject some idle thought but he didn’t have any concrete plans. East, west, north and south had all been potential destinations. He shrugs.  
-So why not come with me?  
Baldur bristles but before he can say something Ragnar raises his hand.  
-Not as a slave, as a...freedman.  
It’s Baldurs turn to think. He is despite his prolonged exposure to Loki not particularly sly and he’s always been of the honest sort. That does not mean he is in any ways stupid however and he is intelligent enough to see when others are trying to be clever. Ragnar clearly wants something from him. He has the same look on his face as Odin used to have when he tried to coax Loki into doing something for him. Ragnar is ruthless enough that he’d simply kill a slave that’s proving too bothersome. So why is he trying to keep Baldur alive and content enough that he’d agree to stay? 

By now Baldur knows that one of Ragnar’s most defining traits is his curiousity. He thinks he can safely assume that Ragnar wants him close so he can get information from him. The question now is what does Ragnar need that information for and whether Baldur wants to give him that information. Ragnar is a raider so part of the reason he wants information is probably so he can plan further raids. Baldur would rather avoid that. The saxons are not his people but that doesn’t mean he’s fine with letting his family’s people raid them. On the other hand if Ragnar were to speak the language he’s more likely to trade with the Saxons than raid them. Baldur figures that if he stays he will have to be careful with what he says. But does Baldur want to stay? Until now he has always let his own thirst for knowledge guide him on his travels. The Norse do not have great scholars like the Persians, the Indians or the Han. But they have ingenious inventors, Floki being a prime example. Ragnar’s ship had ridden the waves as if it had been Skidbladnir itself and Baldur really wants to know how Floki had managed that. He is also curious how far his half-brother is going to go. His time at King Karl’s court has given him an eye for great men and Ragnar might make it there as wel.

“Alright,”he finally says. “I will go with you.”He doesn’t know his grin is almost the same as Ragnar’s, Ragnar however does notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we already have the first deviation into AU. Because I figured that Baldur-as-Athelstan-the-Monk, would be a lot more assertive and willing to die than simple-Athelstan-the Monk. So Ragnar has to employ differend methods to keep Athelstan close to him.


	3. How Baldur came to know his family and learned never to underestimate an Odinson

The first few weeks at Ragnar's farmstead are strange and somewhat tense as everybody adjusts to Baldur’s presence. Ragnar's wife, Lagertha, is a fierce magnificent woman.  Despite her husband's reassurances she is highly suspicious of him at first and she keeps a sharp eye on his every movement. Like her husband she is intelligent and highly curious and when she is not threatening him to disembowel him if he harms her family she asks casual questions about where he comes from. Like with Ragnar Baldur  keeps a careful tongue in his head.  He may not be Saxon but he does not bear them grudges either and he'd rather not sent them boatfulls of plunder-seeking vikings by saying too much.  
Ragnar's son Bjorn, is if possible even more openly suspicious of him than Lagertha. Every word he says is questioned and sneered at and Baldur feels a heavy undercurrent of resentment. When he spots the armring still new and meticulously polished to a shine he understands a bit better.  Bjorn probably sees himself as the man of the house after his father and here comes Baldur, a stranger brought home from a raid, but one his father seems to value. Bjorn probably fears to see his position usurped.  
The only one not suspicious, or at least not openly, is little Gyda.  It doesn't mean she doesn't watch him like the others but with her it is mostly out of curiosity. Baldur's habit, quickly discarded for some old but more practical farm clothes, is extensively inspected and Baldur's curly black-dyed hair often has a few curious fingers running through them. His tonsure especially gets a lot of attention, and the peachy fuzz that grows out seems to amaze Gyda to no end.  
Baldur who is developing a soft spot for Ragnar's kind-hearted daughter tolerates it with a smile and is secretly glad he managed to improvise some hair dye with onion skins and the few walnut-shells he had left. Soon he will have to find new ones or hope Ragnar's family will not notice a lightening of his hair color. He never managed to dye his hair as dark with onion skins as with walnut shells.  
Once the initial suspicion passes Baldur quietly slips into the routine at the farm.  He helps Gyda with the goats and sheep, he helps Ragnar with the tilling of the family’s small field and he gets roped by Lagertha into helping with the dying of the wool. A few quiet words of advice on better mordants gets him his first smile from the fierce shieldmaiden. Only Bjorn continues to be somewhat resentful but even that eases somewhat when he shows the boy ( his nephew really) how to tickle trout.

Even though the suspicion eases the looks stay however. Baldur is so used to be observed by then that he at first fails to notice the changed nature of the looks.  But he didn’t spent a century traveling with Loki and Sigyn  to miss the new heat forever. He takes to  getting up earlier in the morning and going to bed later in the evening. At first nobody notices. It's not as if there is a shortage of shores to do and if the goats are already milked in the morning or the garden already weeded in the evening it only means that Gyda can spend more time spinning or that Ragnar has more time to check his traps. But it does not pass unnoticed forever. They finally corner him on one of the few evenings he goes to bed early. He and Ragnar have spent the whole day stacking hay and he is  absolutely exhausted. From the noises that seep through the separation he deduces that Ragnar is not but he does not expect what comes next. He is halfway between waking and sleeping when he hears giggling and stumbling. He cracks open an eye only for both his eyes to fly open when his brain registers what he is seeing. Ragnar is naked  except for his trousers while Lagertha isn't much more dressed with the fur she is clutching to her chest. Baldur suspects that she wears more for the warmth than any notion of decency.  
"Athelstan,"Ragnar says. "We want to ask you something."  
"Come, join us,"Lagertha adds.  
For a moment Baldur can only stare blankly. He has been propositioned before during his travels though the last time someone did it so blatantly it had been a fiery little mongolian lady who'd sat on his lap with no underwear on. The last time he had been invited for a threesome it had been almost two centuries ago by Loki and Sigyn.  
"I..I can't,"he stammers.  
Ragnar frowns.   
"Why?"  
For a moment Baldur can only gape. He can't tell them it's because he is a monk. That's a lie and he was always bad at lying.  He also can't tell them it's because Ragnar is his half-brother and despite what the Vanir were up to he really isn't into incest. So he tells them the other reason.  
"I wish to remain true to my wife,"he finally says.  
'Your wife?"Lagertha exclaims. The fact she says nothing about him being priest tells him Ragnar told her about his life before the monastery.  
"She died,"Baldur answers with a sad smile. That had always been what had grieved him most about the whole mistletoe arrow mess and had also been one of the few things Loki had ever felt guilty about.  
"Childbirth?"Lagertha asks with a wince.  
Baldur shakes his head.  
"Grief,'he says and lets her make her own conclusions from there. Everyone knows someone who lost a child or has lost one themselves. Nevermind that it was his own death that killed Nanna.  
After that the heated looks peter off, but the rough affection does not.  

Spring eases into  early summer and Ragnar's questions about the Saxon kingdoms and the language intensify. Baldur dances around them teaching Ragnar how to speak Saxon but avoiding to give answers on the Saxon defenses.  It seems to frustrate Ragnar for all that Baldur enjoys the challenge and it culminates one evening when Ragnar actually tries to make Baldur drunk.  
Baldur matches Ragnar cup for cup and he has to laugh at his half-brother's befuddled look when he realizes Baldur is still sober. No matter how good Lagertha's mead is, it cannot match the headiness of the mead served in Valhalla. Even after centuries Baldur still has an enormous tolerance for alcohol.  
The next morning both Baldur and Lagertha have a good laugh at Ragnar's sour face when he wakes with a hangover and they make an effort to 'accidentally" bang as many pots together as they can. Ragnar snarls at first but even he can see the humor when his headache eases. After that Ragnar doesn't press anymore when Baldur avoids answering a question but hoards whatever knowledge he can pry loose.

The relative lack of knowledge does not keep Ragnar from planning the next raid. The crops have been put into the ground and there isn't much to do until they grow and ripen enough for harvest. Lagertha is also joining the raid this time and they leave the farm into Baldur's hands much to Bjorn's initial disgruntlement.  Gyda doesn't seem to mind much and when they wave the ship goodbye in Kattegat she holds his hand as if he were a family member.  
'They will come back,"she says suddenly."But they will bring trouble. You should  pick up your sword again, uncle."  
Baldur, shocked, looks down. There is something flashing behind Gyda's eyes and he has to wonder if of all his descendants Gyda is the one to inherit Odin's Sight.  
"Uncle?"he croaks  
Gyda looks up, her smile knowing.  
"You smile like father,"she says."And your eyes are the same. Also you really should be more carefull with dyeing your hair."  
Baldur laughs nervously.  
"I guess I should," he says. "What will you do?"  
"Should I do something? "she asks and she smiles. It is mostly innocent but there is curl in the corner of her mouth that reminds Baldur entirely too much of Odin.  
He laughs again, this time more easily, and gives her a one-armed hug like he once gave to Forseti.   
"Alright, little gem,"He says. "Let's fetch your brother before he trips off the dock and go home. The goats won't milk themselves."

The first few days Baldur finds himself unable to follow Gyda's advice. While there is less work to do now that the planting is done they are also down two adults. He gets up almost before sun rises and collapses into bed sometimes long after the sun has set. Bjorn and Gyda don't fare much better though he makes a point to shoo them to bed as soon as the sky starts changing colors taking over their chores if need be. Despite Bjorn's aspirations to manhood both are children still and need their sleep.  But day by day the burden eases as they grow accustomed to it and suddenly they find themselves with some leisure time in the evening. 

Bjorn is quick to pick up his wooden sword and shield and it doesn't take much coaxing on his part to convince Gyda to be his opponent.  It is Gyda's raised eyebrow that finally pushes Baldur to pick the last practice sword. It feels awkward at first and Bjorn's incredulous looks certainly don't help. It has been five years since he had to fight and even before that he never was an enthusiastic fighter. But he persists, Gyda's prediction ringing in his ears, and slowly but surely the movements his father had drilled into his head and body come back. Before long he is not just practicing with his niece and nephew but actively teaching them and on a whim he decides to include the things he learned in the Indian Kingdoms and the from the warrior-monks in Qin. That earns him odd looks from both of them but though the practical application of what he teaches them is not immediately apparent they are both Ragnar's children and they are quick to figure it out themselves. The first time Gyda uses a tricky bit of footwork he taught her and trips him up with almost casual ease he can only smile proudly.  Then he has to laugh because Bjorn has apparently taken the fact he is down as  an invitation to dig his fingers into his sensitive sides and the practice session degenerates into a tickle war from there.

A couple of weeks later when the green shoots of wheat are starting to reach past his knees Ragnar's ship returns and with it comes the predicted trouble. Ragnar barely makes it off the ship before he gets arrested for murder. One of Ragnar's shipmates takes the effort to travel to the farm but even so Baldur and the children barely make it in time to attend the trial. Earl Haraldson does obviously not care about proper procedure. Not that it would have helped much  with the deck so obviously stacked against his half-brother. Baldur can only watch in horror as Earl Haraldson ruthlessly bends testimonies and laws to serve his own needs. In the end it is Rollo who saves the day with his words setting Ragnar free and leaving the earl to stew in his powerless rage. Or not so powerless as they find out later

The party is well underway when the attack comes. Most of the participants are well and truly drunk and some of them ( Bjorn included) are already sleeping. Baldur, though having had a few himself, is one of the few still fairly sober as are Lagertha, Rollo and Ragnar.  The attack is lightning fast and later Baldur will be amazed that the only death is Erik. As it is he is mostly concerned for Gyda and the sleeping Bjorn. He hauls Bjorn on his shoulder and firmly takes Gyda's hand before aiming for the nearest door. Ragnar and Lagertha can handle themselves but the children need to be safe. To his dismay the attackers have  found the other door already and are trying to enter. The women, half of them shieldmaidens like Lagertha, are doing everything they can to keep them out as the men keep fighting at the front to cover the retreat of the children and non-combatants.  Baldur hands Bjorn to a sturdy looking older matron and pulls his saex. Next to him Gyda is pulling her knifr. The small blade is useless in pitched battle but it would make any attacker think twice before trying to brutalize her. After all a knifr to the eye is just as deadly as a sword in the guts.   
No-one is carrying a sword though quite a few have hatchets or saexes in their hands which is just as well since in the cramped space one is just as likely to wound a friend than one of raiders with the broad movements a sword requires. No, better a hatchet with its short efficient swings or a saex made to stab in even the tightest shieldwall. Baldur pushes to the front and slots next to two shieldmaidens both already grinning like loons. Gyda steps in behind him ready to stab any who makes it past the improvised wall.  
They heave and push, desperation giving them strength and Baldur kills his first man in many years. The second follows soon and  he loses track after that. Then suddenly the pressure breaks and they are out. The older women and children  are quick to run to safety while the rest covers the retreat. Baldur wants to urge Gyda to go with them. The matron he entrusted Bjorn with is already running towards safety but Gyda sticks to his side like a burr and  is brandishing her knifr like she is daring anyone to approach her. Luckily it turns out she doesn't need to use it. There are no raiders left and the warriors on the other end have made short work of their attackers as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a long hiatus here you have the first of two new chapters.
> 
> So now we again have a couple of new small deviations of into AU. The fit into Ragnar's family goes slightly easier and since I figured that Baldur-as-Athelstan would a have a bigger alcohol tolerance than Athelstan-the-Monk who probably never drank anything stronger than small beer Ragnar does not manage to pry as much information from Baldur as he does in the show.  
> Not that it stops Ragnar of course
> 
> I also figured that Baldur would have had extensive martial training as a son of Odin which means he acquits himself a great deal better during the first attempted hall-burning. And since he is a curious man I figured he would continue learning on his travels. So yes I totally made him learn Shaolin Kung Fu and Kalaripayattu both which already had a long tradition back then. Sue me I am a martial arts nerd.
> 
> Aand we also have the first person who figures out Baldur's identity. Gyda was always one of my favorites next to Athelstan and she always struck me as the quiet but extremely observant sort. Plus she likes his hair, she sure would have noticed the white roots.


	4. How Baldur kicked some ass and  Ragnar kicked some more

Despite the fact  there is only one death on their side the raid hangs over the settlement like a stifling dark cloud.    There is no signing when the harvest is brought in, the children do not shout when they play and people stick close to their houses. Though nobody says it out loud everybody knows who sent the raiders and what can a man do when his own earl is trying to kill him. Ragnar broods for days, going to think on top of the cliffs for hours at the time. Baldur remembers Odin's own black morose tempers and also what usually happened after He does not know whether to dread or anticipate what will follow Ragnar's. When Ragnar finally comes down Baldur can see the myriad of plans flash behind his eyes but so far none seem to be satisfactory and as the dog days pass and slowly creep towards late summer things seem to settle again. Which is exactly the moment Haraldson chooses to attack. They are better prepared this time. They attack during the middle of the day when everybody is scattered doing chores and they ride fast horses to hunt anyone down before they can escape and warn. 

Ragnar is out hunting, hoping to shoot a buck now that they are fat in preparation of the rut. Baldur is inside the house with Lagertha and Gyda as they make preparations for the midday meal. Bjorn is outside preparing the boat for this afternoon when they will set out the fishtraps. He is the one to warn them them, his voice high and cracking with tension and fear. Lagertha decides to stand their ground and Baldur brushes shoulder with her as a grips his saex and an axe. When he hears Ragnar stumble in he breathes in relief but it is short-lived when he sees the state Ragnar is in. The wound on his leg is bleeding sluggishly already, incapacitating but not likely to kill him, the arrow wound on his shoulder causes Baldur more concern. It is too close to a lot of important organs, veins and nerves and likely a source of infection as well if the archer stuck his arrow in the ground before shooting. He hauls his brother inside and closes the door but not before spotting the Earl's men already gathering outside.  
"Go," he says to Lagertha as he pushes her husband into her arms and the whole family towards the secret passage under the floorboards. "I will hold them off."  
"It's me they want,"Ragnar protests.  
"Which is why they will not harm me if they think I can lead them to you,"Baldur interrupts. "Now go. The longer you stay the longer I will need to stall them."  
Outside they can hear the Earl's men calling.  Ragnar is still protesting as is Bjorn but Lagertha only gives him a long hard look before shoving both her men down the hole.  
"Don't die,"she says.  
"I won't,"Baldur replies. "And even if I do I will come back,"he adds half -joking.  
Lagertha gives him a last odd look before going down the hole herself, leaving Baldur alone in the homestead. The smell of smoke tells him he shouldn't stay inside for too long, the roof is most likely already on fire.  
Whatever the Earl and his men were expecting it wasn't a threadbare freedman. They laugh incredulously.  
"Is Ragnar so weak that he sends us his slave?"the Earl sneers.  
"Ragnar is not here," Baldur says. "And I am a free man."  
"You lie," one of the men says. Baldur recalls him being called Svein, the Earl's right hand man. "I saw him enter this house."  
"And yet Ragnar is no longer here,"Baldur repeats.  
"Where is he then," the Earl barks impatiently.  
"Long gone,"Baldur simply says.  
The answer obviously does not satisfy the earl and Baldur starts looking for a way out. There is a horse he thinks he could quickly reach and only one man close enough to hinder him.  
"You are still lying," the Earls says.He turns towards his men.  
"Seize him,"he commands and Baldur takes it as his clue to get away. He lunges for the horse and slays the man near it with a quick swing of his axe. Before the rest realize what is going on he has swung himself on the horse's back and has kicked the beast into a gallop.  
Faintly he hears the Earl order a pursuit and before long he hears the drumbeat of two other galloping horses.  
He leads them on a merry chase before  driving the horse off and continuing on foot. It doesn't take them long to discover the ruse but it gives him enough lead to reach the cliffs.  
There is a boat floating on the fjord and Baldur can only just make out four figures. He allows himself a relieved smile. His brother's family is safe for now though the sound of two men approaching alert him to the fact he isn't yet. He takes a deep breath. This isn't the highest dive he ever made. Loki once pushed him off some cliffs in the Kingdom of Connacht for a laugh but this will be the highest dive he ever voluntarily made. Not  trying to think too much he jumps as far from the edge as he can and lets himself fall, feet first.  The water hits like an icy slap and for a moment  he forgets not to breathe. He comes up coughing and sputtering  and at first  he is so disoriented he misses the boat approaching. Suddenly there are three pairs of hands tugging at his tunic, one adult and two children, and before he knows it he is tugged into the boat.  
Lagertha almost immediately takes him to task.  
"That was the most idiotic thing I ever saw somebody do,"she scolds. "What mad god possessed you? You could have died!"  
"There weren't many other choices, now were there?"he answers a bit wryly and Lagertha doesn't really have an answer to that so she busies herself with Ragnar who is sprawled out cold in the bottom of the boat. He tries to wring out as much water out of his hair before taking up the oars. Gyda tells him where to go. They are going to Floki's home apparently. He lives deep in the woods and few know where he lives which makes his home the prime place to hide for a while.

By the time they reach Floki's home Baldur's hands are raw and he is shivering from the cold. The fjords never truly warm up even in summer and  autumn is coming early this year meaning that despite the clear skies there is a cold wind blowing that is stealing every ounce of warmth Baldur generates. He still forces himself to move and help Lagertha move her husband. Ragnar seems to have taken a turn for the worst and he hasn't woken. Bjorn runs ahead to warn Floki and Baldur is grateful when the mad boat-builder nudges him away and takes over. He is exhausted and Ragnar is not exactly light. He still manages to keep himself awake long enough to observe Floki as he sets out to heal  Ragnar. Floki obviously  knows what he is doing, calling for clean water, yarrow and garlic and tasking his lady friend Helga with boiling bandages and soaking them in the juice of daisies.  He checks the shoulder wound for bubbling and sucking and cleans both with fresh boiled water before guiding Lagertha in cauterizing the bleeding with a hot knife.  Only then does he carefully stitch the wounds close. Baldur is halfway sleeping by that point and only notices he has been muttering under his breath when Bjorn shoots him an odd look. He realizes he has been murmuring any prayer he ever heard, jumbling together the Pater Noster with prayers to Odin, mantras he heard in India and Qin and the Dhikr he heard in Bagdad. He is not sure whose attention he tries to draw that way but something  is definitely paying attention when he is done though most of it is focused on Ragnar. Floki notices too and sends him a sharp look. However he only addresses it the next morning after they know a bit better whether Ragnar will live.

Baldur is outside when Floki approaches, milking the only goat Floki has.  
"What was that yesterday,"the ship-wright asks. Baldur takes a moment to answer. He can't exactly feign ignorance. Somebody clearly called for the gods' attention and got it, something few ever manage. It wasn't Floki nor was it Lagertha or the children. Which begs the question who the foreign freedman really is. The ship-builder gives him a long searching look and Baldur can see the conclusions forming in his eyes.

While not noticeable to those who see him day to day, now that he ran out of walnut shells Baldur's hair has lightened from its original near black to a murky shade between dark blond and light brown. Baldur is also fairly sure his roots are showing. Harvest is a busy time and he doesn't have the time to dye as regularly as he wishes. Combined  with the fact that Baldur shares eyes and a laugh with Ragnar, as Gyda pointed out, Floki is more than capable of noticing the subtle resemblance. And since everyone in the household knows who Ragnar claims for a father, well, Floki is smart enough to put the clues together.  
"Ragnar is my brother,"Baldur confirms.  
"Heimdallr?"Floki asks. Baldur shakes his head and it doesn't take the shipwright long to figure out the truth after that. After all there aren't that many gods who are described as being white-haired.  
"Bal-"he starts but he doesn't get to finish as Baldur quickly puts a hand on his mouth.  
"I'd rather not you spoke that name,"he says. "So far the gods haven't figured who called them and I would rather avoid further attention."  
Floki's eyebrows rise  inquisitively above Baldur's hand.  
'You know the legends, Floki. They think I am dead. I would rather keep it that way."  
"Why ?" the ship-builder aks when Baldur removes his hand.  
"Have you ever been the one sane man in a hall full of people who will not listen?"  
And Floki with his too sharp eyes and too sharp mind smiles in understanding.

Ragnar proves to be a stubborn bastard and survives. Both wounds remain clean of infection and slowly but surely they mend. Too slowly for Ragnar however.  Baldur's brother soon grows grouchy and cantankerous and while Lagertha scolds him for it he occasionally takes it out on the rest of the household. Baldur who remembers Odin's grouchiness after he came down from his ordeal on Yggdrasil just shrugs, rolls his eyes and takes the children out to forage. Floki's stores are ample but they were meant for two not a household of seven. Luckily even though summer is rapidly turning into fall  the forest still provides plenty of food when one knows how to look. Soon there are strings of mushrooms and seaweed hanging from the rafters, tiny sweet-sour wild apples lying on the shelves and Baldur spends a few pleasant afternoons with Helga and Lagertha  making preserves out of the ligonberries, hawthorn and and other berries they find. They dig through the muddy banks of the nearby creek for roots and when he and the children return Helga almost yells when she sees them. They are so muddy they can barely pass for human. The nut harvest is also quite plentiful and Baldur makes an effort to turn the acorns into flour so that they can stretch Floki's wheat stores. One evening where Ragnar has been particularly grouchy he measures out equal amounts of acorn flour and wheat  and proceeds to make noodles like one tiny grandmother in Qin once taught him on a cold day much like this one. Floki's face when he takes his first dubious bite makes even Ragnar laugh and it goes downhill from there as the ship-builder proceeds to explore in detail the texture, flexibility and elasticity of his noodles.Three days later they are still finding bits of noodle in the corners of the house. 

The tentative peace is shattered however when Torstein finally manages to escape the scrutiny of the Earl and visits them. The news of Rollo's capture goes through the household like a lightning strike. If Ragnar was ill-tempered before he is downright incandescent now. The wounds are still pink and painful but it does not stop him from sending Floki with a challenge. The Earl's answer is swift and the holmgang is set in ten days time. 

Despite cautioning from the rest of the household Ragnar is determined to take his training back up. Baldur agrees to help if only to keep him from straining himself and at first it is painful to watch. Ragnar lost most of his strength these past weeks and is still limping to boot. But like all of Odin's children, Ragnar is stubborn and he grows stronger by the day.  By the time the day of the Holmgang arrives Baldur thinks he might actually have a chance if he doesn't draw it out.  
It is still with his heart in his throat that he watches his half-brother enter the space set out for the fight. He knows from the noises he heard last night coming from the other side of Floki's small hall that Lagertha is  also worried. and even Floki is sober and hardfaced for once.  
Ragnar starts hard and fast, trying to overwhelm the earl before his strength flags but Haraldson weathers it giving as good as he gets. Soon Ragnar's injuries start to act up and Baldur frowns in confusion. Even yesterday Ragnar held out longer than he does today. He shares a look with Floki who grins. Trust his brother to play up his injuries to lull the earl into a false sense of security.  Still Baldur forgets to breathe when Ragnar's sword breaks.That of all the things it would be a faulty sword to do his brother in smacks of mockery of the gods. Haraldson's unexpected act of chivalry surprises everyone. The man has always been ruthlessly pragmatic before and more than willing to break the spirit if not the letter of the law. Even so it is almost not enough. Baldur claps his hand on his mouth to keep himself from shouting in horror when the earl's axe slashes through Ragnar's cheap ring-studded jerkin. The conclusions almost seems foregone then and even Floki is deadly silent. Which is when Ragnar manages to completely turn the situation around. The earl topples like an old oak and  in the following silence Baldur doesn't miss the rustling of wings as a raven lands on a nearby pole.  
Huginn or Muginn,he thinks. He never could distinguish one from the other. Ragnar notices as well and draws the dying earl's attention to it before finishing him off. He is almost gentle when he does allowing the earl's wife a final goodbye. The earl wouldn't have done the same Baldur knows. What follows is almost anticlimatic.The earl's right hand man Svein tries to grab control of the situation by ordering the Haraldson's housekarls to kill Ragnar but none of them move, and a scarred and still healing Rollo puts an end to the matter by the way of an axe to the chest. The earl's wife then suddenly kills her daughter's old husband much to the daughter's relief and proceeds to hail Ragnar as the new earl. At first nobody takes up the shout ,still held in the gravity of the moment but then the tension snaps and at once everybody is shouting. Baldur too relieved for anything else laughs and shouts with them and he hears Floki shout and giggle in glee.

The next day Ragnar is instated as the earl.  It goes in typical viking fashion with lots of shouting, ribbing and grand declarations of loyalty each as genuine as the other. Baldur stands in the back, a bit hesitant. Ragnar is his brother though few know it and one that has grown dearer than most. But to the people here he is a freedman and one they still remember arriving with a rope around his neck. While being a freedman is miles ahead of being a slave it is still not quite  the same as being freeborn and so Baldur waits. Little by little the people drift away from the earl's seat towards the feast being laid out until there is a bubble of privacy around the new earl and his family. Only then does Ragnar wave him over. Baldur starts to lower himself to his knees  but Ragnar half hops half stumbles of the dais and stops him with a hand on his chest. There is something in his hand and when Baldur takes it he sees it's an armring made of well-wrought silver, the ends shaped like blooms of scentless mayweed.  
Baldur looks up sharply but Ragnar brings his mouth near his ear before he can say anything.  
"You have proven your loyalty already, Athelstan,"he says. "And I would never require a brother to kneel."  
Baldur huffs a sharp laugh.  
"Did Floki tell you?"he asks.  
Ragnar shakes his head with a snort and lightly grips Baldur's hair, which due to lack of opportunity and privacy has faded to a murky ashy blond.  
"You are not as subtle as you think, brother,"Ragnar answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second of the new chapters
> 
> A few bigger deviation into AU. It was logical for Ragnar to stay and fight off the Earl's men when there were only two capable fighters. Now that there are three...? Not so much. So here Baldur takes Ragnar's place and doing so firmly proves his loyalty to his brother.
> 
> Also did I make Loki push Baldur off the cliffs of Moher? Yes I did. We all know Loki is a little shit who'd have thought it fun. Death doesn't stick to Baldur anyway. Don try it yourself though, it is a hundred meter drop even on the lower places and the rocks down there are sharp...
> 
> About Ragnar's injuries. I was always puzzled that they made the leg wound the incapacitating one. Swords when well maintained leave relatively clean cuts. Arrows on the other hand.. There was a reason why the french knights hated the english bowmen so much. A lot of archers stick their arrows into the ground before shooting which means the arrows have bits of earth clinging to it along with all the fun bacteria that implies. If the arrow didn't do you in the gangrene would. On top of that Ragnar is shot in the shoulder which is a great deal less harmless than Hollywood would like you to believe. There is the aortic arch passing there which would spurt like a fire-hydrant if nicked and the arteria brachialis which would do the same. Next there is the top of the lung which would either mean a collapsed lung at best or a sucking chestwound at worst which can also do you in very fast. Last there are a lot of nerves in that area, it wouldn't have been unrealistic for Ragnar to lose at least some function of his arm. So in the series Ragnar got very very lucky. Here he wasn't so lucky but the gods were paying attention...
> 
> And yes I made Floki taste noodles. If the saxon plates fascinated him so much imagine his reaction to noodles. Also basic fresh noodles are not hard to make just time-consuming. They were already being made in China during the Han dynasty ( 206 BC- 220 CE) so Baldur would have encountered them and being as curious as he is he would have wanted to know how to make it.
> 
> ANd last two more people know who Baldur is. Floki who doesn't see Baldur day to day would of course immediately notice the change of hair color and he is implied to much more in tune with the other world. Ragnar does take a while longer since the hair color change is gradual and he can't really compare their faces since mirrors aren't really available but he is highly intelligent. And he would be a sarcastic shit about it by giving Baldur something with scentless mayweed on it which in Scandinavia is still called "Baldur's brow"...


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